


The Final Straw

by Severina



Category: Live Free or Die Hard (2007)
Genre: Community: smallfandomfest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-24
Updated: 2013-05-24
Packaged: 2017-12-12 19:22:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/815108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severina/pseuds/Severina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You know how long it's been since I've had someone to buy shit for?" John asks.  "A long fucking time, kid.  Indulge me."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Final Straw

**Author's Note:**

> Written for LJ's smallfandomfest, for the prompt "John really needs to stop... giving him things."
> 
> * * *

Before he and John got together, Matt would never have expected that John was a 'gifter'. Based on all the stories he's heard from Lucy – and that girl has a LOT of stories about her childhood – Matt pictured John as more of the "forgets it's your birthday / picks up perfume at the local convenience store and hands it over in a plastic bag" type. The kind of guy that only remembers it's Valentine's Day on the way home from work when all those kids who sell flowers on the street corners are practically sold out, and has to bring home those last wilted, half-dead blooms that nobody else wanted. 

Matt figured John was _that_ guy.

He couldn't have been more wrong.

They've been together almost a month the first time it happens. He's lounging in his computer chair in the spare room, fiddling around on usenet and eating Cheetos, when John drops the computer disk onto the desk.

Matt looks over his shoulder, tilts his head up. "You're home early."

"Caught a break on the case," John says. He leans down to brush their lips together, and the whole thing is still new enough that Matt squirms a little in his seat, still feels that flush of exhilaration and excitement that John wants to kiss him, touch him, that somehow after the mess of the fire sale and everything that came after it they became an actual couple. Not John and Matt, but John-and-Matt. 

He arches his back to deepen the kiss, and one thing leads to another. It usually does. 

He doesn't actually find out about Rizzioti's confession until they're sitting down to dinner a couple of hours later, and he forgets about the disk entirely until he gets up in the middle of the night to check out what's happening on the forums and finds it on the desk.

It turns out to be a game. A 16-bit game. From a time when dinosaurs roamed the earth. 

When Matt casually brings it up at breakfast the next morning, John smiles. "See ya playin' those games all the damn time. Saw that and thought you might like it. You don't have that one, do ya?"

Matt bites down on words like 'archaic' and 'prehistoric' when he sees the hopeful look John gives him. He just doesn't have the heart to be the one who wipes that pleased look off John's face. "Nooooo," he says instead. "I definitely don't have that one."

* * *

"A cactus."

"Yeah."

Matt prods the tiny pot with an index finger, raises a brow. "A cactus with a bow on it."

"Well, you don't bring a guy flowers," John says reasonably.

"That sounds… logical," Matt says. He flicks a finger at the yellow satin ribbon, then stands to wrap his arms around John's neck, draws him in. "Thank you. I'll try not to kill it with my black thumb."

* * *

"Should I be getting _him_ things?" Matt asks Warlock over the webcam a few days later.

"Do you want to get him things?"

Matt chews on his nail, considering the question from all angles. "I don't _not_ want to get him things," he answers finally.

"So get him things!"

"Maybe I should just tell him to stop giving me things."

"You could do that," Warlock says. "Or you could give him things."

"What things?"

"Fuck, I don't know," Warlock says. "He's supercop, right? Able to jump from tall buildings in a single firehose-tethered bound, kill all the bad guys with one hand tied behind his back, all that shit? Get him throwing stars and a goddamn Rambo blade, dude."

"Right," Matt says. "Let's make the man _more_ dangerous. That's a good plan. Excellent suggestion."

"Who am I, fucking Dear Abby? I look like an advice columnist to you? No, I do not. I look like an overweight, unshaven computer God, that's what I look like. _Should I get him something_?" he mocks. Warlock leans back in his chair, shakes his head. "I'll tell you one thing. I am never getting into a relationship if it means dealing with all this bullshit. No fucking way."

Matt snorts. "Considering you haven't left your basement in six years, I don't think that'll be a problem."

He logs off when Warlock is still sputtering about the time he went up to the dining room for Christmas dinner in '05.

* * *

After half a lifetime of living on ramen noodles and take-out, Matt really doesn't expect to enjoy cooking quite so much. He hasn't had the nerve to try anything particularly fancy, but he makes a mean stir-fry and his home-made marinara sauce can bring grown men to their knees, if he does say so himself.

He's halfway through trying out a new recipe for chicken soup, head bent and engrossed in tossing diced onions into the saucepan, when John wraps his arms around him from behind. Matt smiles when John's lips find his neck, tilts his head to the side to give him better access. 

"Hey," he says.

"Hey," John answers, lips moving against his neck in that way that makes him shudder. "Smells good."

"New cologne."

"The soup, smartass," John says. When he pulls away Matt laughs, turns from the stove to take in the long line of him leaning against the kitchen table, snow melting on the floor from his boots. Four months into the relationship and he kind of expected a bit of the buzz to have dissipated by now. But he still gets the same goofy rush of joy at knowing that John wants him, that John is his; the same shivery thrill in anticipation of John's touch.

"Have fun with Lucy?" he asks.

John flops down onto the chair, furrows his brow. "Did you know that it's wrong to say 'it's fine'? She asked what I thought of the dress. I said 'it's fine'. Wouldn't talk to me for twenty minutes. Not that that was a punishment." John shakes his head, then waves a hand airily at the table. "Oh, and I got you this."

Matt sets the wooden spoon across the pot, tries his best not to approach the plastic bag like a skittish animal. But his mind is already scrambling, trying to figure out what the latest gift could possibly be. Trying to figure out just how much of an acting job he'll have to do this time. He upends the bag carefully, eyes the pooling white cotton. 

"Girl at the store told me it has something to do with computers," John says, "though I don't know what the hell a little penguin has to do with… RAM and that shit."

Matt sighs in relief. A T-shirt. That's not so bad. He actually even already has this one... though the design is so faded that it's barely legible anymore. 

It's a nice gesture. There'll _all_ nice gestures, even the cactus that is currently raggedly clinging to life on the shelf in his office. But he can't deny that all the little gifts are kind of weirding him out. Maybe it's because he doesn't reciprocate; maybe it's because a part of him feels a bit like the little woman and a bit like a child who's getting treats when the old man comes home from work, and he definitely doesn't want to feel either of those things where John McClane is concerned. 

Matt takes a breath. "John," he says, "you don't have to—"

"I like to," John interrupts. 

"Yes, but—"

"You know how long it's been since I've had someone to buy shit for?" John asks. "A long fucking time, kid. Indulge me."

Matt can't resist that face, that look in John's eyes. He steps into the vee of John's legs, leans down to show his appreciation.

When John pulls away a minute later, gasping for breath, Matt congratulates himself on a job well done.

* * *

At first, when Matt wakes up in the morning feeling kind of sniffly, he thinks it's just a cold. People get colds. Even him, despite the fact that he uses his anti-bacterial cleanser with a near religious fervor and makes it a habit to shower twice a day. But as the morning carries on and he can't even muster the energy to rise from the sofa, he becomes more and more sure that it's the black death. Plague. He's not recovering from this one.

His head feels heavy and his neck is sore from holding up all that weight. He can't concentrate. His vision is blurry. His throat hurts from all the coughing. He's got a snot factory operating somewhere in his sinus cavity and it's on overtime hours. He's shivering with cold, but five minutes after he pulls the blanket up to his chin he feels like he's being consumed in a blast furnace.

He's definitely going to die.

He tries to distract himself from his imminent demise by thinking about good things. The rush he feels when something he's coded works exactly as he intended it to. The decadent flavour of chocolate cake. The sweet stretch that just straddles the border between pleasure and pain when John pushes slowly inside him, making him gasp and squirm. 

That leads to memories of the night before. Which starts out pleasant, but by the time Matt's started working on the second box of tissues -- for his nose – his eyes have narrowed and he's remembering other things. The way John kept snuffling against his neck. Laying his head on John's chest afterward and hearing that _rattle_ and thinking smugly that he'd really worn John out.

It occurs to him that when John pulled away from that kiss in the kitchen yesterday, it wasn't exactly because he was so damn intoxicating. It was because John needed to breath and couldn't do it through his nose.

By the time John strides through the door several hours later, Matt has come to a decision.

"Hey, kid," John says. He stops short, arches a brow at the pile of used tissues surrounding the sofa, the humidifier going full blast on the TV tray. "You sick?"

"John," Matt says, "you _really_ need to stop giving me things."


End file.
